The Kentucky INBRE serves a statewide mission to build a sustainable infrastructure with a capacity for biomedical and health-related research and research training. In this application, the two research intensive institutions, the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky, will partner with our regional comprehensive affiliates including Eastern Kentucky University, Morehead State University, Northern Kentucky University and Western Kentucky University, and with a number of outreach institutions, to continue the development of a highly collaborative and successful network. The goal of our network is to build competitive research, which will serve as the foundation for excellent training of our students in the biomedical and health-related sciences. We plan to develop and grow our multi-disciplinary research network with an overarching theme of functional genomics. With an emphasis on sustainability, we will continue to fund developmental research projects for our junior investigators, while providing critical mentoring, as well as the requisite infrastructure support for genomics and bioinformatics. Our centralized genomics core facility will provide access to state-of-the-art equipment for microarray and next generation sequencing technologies along with qualified technical support. Similarly, we will continue to build a critical mass of expertise and infrastructure in bioinformatics to provide data analysis services for high content and/or high throughput data. We have built undergraduate and graduate training programs in bioinformatics. In the rapidly changing world of biomedical research, these facilities and services are essential to providing a pathway to independence for our next generation of investigators. We will provide junior faculty with ail of the tools necessary to become independent investigators, thereby building network sustainability, and at the same time provide for high quality research training experiences for our students. In summary, our strategy is designed to build a sustainable infrastructure with capacity for biomedical and health-related research arid research training. This strategy will aid the development of a highly skilled workforce in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.